The present invention generally relates to an appliance for treating orthopedic injuries or disease. The present invention particularly relates to a fixation member configured to be utilized in orthopedic surgery for the treatment of periarticular orthopedic fractures.
Physicians utilize various appliances to treat orthopedic conditions or injuries. For example, a periarticular plate is one type of appliance employed by physicians to treat certain types of orthopedic injuries. In particular, periarticular plates are used during orthopaedic surgery to engage and stabilize comminuted bone. Periarticular plates can also be used to distribute a load in osteopenic bone.
Typically, periarticular plates are configured as flat pieces of titanium, surgical grade stainless steel, or other surgical grade alloys. In addition, a periarticular plate will typically have multiple holes defined therein such that the periarticular plate can be secured to a piece of bone and/or bone fragments with a number of screws. Once attached to comminuted bone in the above described manner, the periarticular plate functions to inhibit relative movement between bone fragments and thus enhances healing.
While periarticular plates enhance the healing of comminuted bone to some degree, they also suffer from a number of drawbacks. For example, once attached to the bone, the flat "plate like" nature of these appliances result in a relatively large surface area of the periarticular plate being biased against the damaged bone. Having a relatively large surface area of the periarticular plate biased against the damaged bone can occlude or otherwise inhibit blood flow to some areas of the bone and thus delay healing. In extreme cases, necrosis may result from the aforementioned occlusion. In addition, the flat "plate like" configuration of periarticular plates results in these appliances having a somewhat limited ability to actually inhibit the relative movement between bone fragments. The use of multiple screws to attach the periarticular plate to the bone fragments helps to alleviate the aforementioned problem, however, in many instances the bone fragments are too small or brittle to withstand the insertion of one or more screws.
Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus for treating periarticular orthopedic fractures which addresses one or more of the above described drawbacks.